


Jewels of the Desert

by Destabilize



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Agender Character, F/M, M/M, NOT J'mon as a dragon because oh dear lord that wouldn't work very well, One Shot, Other, PWP without Porn, Shapeshifting, j'mon sa ord - Freeform, magical sex, shaun gilmore - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 13:13:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9492965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destabilize/pseuds/Destabilize
Summary: "Humans are still so brave, so foolish. All the years I've watched and I'm always impressed. But, Shaun Geddmore, by you more than most."The cavernous tower room was silent and lit with afternoon sun from the expansive, ridiculous windows. No-one else was here, of course. The servants stayed below and J'mon was perfectly able of defending themselves if an audience went poorly. Did metallic dragons ever eat people? Was that-?-that was really not best not entertained right now.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I originally just wrote a very short magical lewd things passage, and then this started getting longer. I stopped before it got away from me, and before I was temped to watch spoilerful episodes that I'm not up to yet. I saw fanart of them meeting and talking and heck, that was enough for me. Enjoy y'all.

To be face to face with a dragon was something Gilmore had previously hoped would never, ever, happen again. To be nearly brushing noses while a long fingered hand grasped his arm in a vice like grip, runching up his robes, well- 

How did he get here?

"Humans are still so brave, so foolish. All the years I've watched and I'm always impressed. But, Shaun Geddmore, by you more than most." 

It was very strange to hear his old name, a relic itself, on J'mon's lips. With anyone else it might annoy, but, maybe it was in this dragon's voice that it was last spoken before he was sent northwards that last, permanent time. 

It was so long ago, for a human man, and yet J'mon was the same, perfect, inhuman form they had always been. Could the boy, Shaun, barely brushing manhood when he left, ever have imagined having the bravado to dally with the guardian of the desert jewel? Of course he could have. 

Still, it took many years to become, strangely, thought Shaun, something else completely mad about his life. 

Shaun Gilmore, all flair and bravado and charismatic smiles had invited himself to J'mon's side more and more since the fall of the Chroma Conclave. That they were a dragon was of course, fascinating, but what had at first intrigued Gilmore was the depth of arcane knowledge in the ancient creature. Secondly, the slow, steady conversational tone so at odds with his own salesman's bluster. Dignity next to charm. 

At first J'mon Sa Ord had been polite and cool. But, they had let him come. 

Gilmore had seen and spoken to them as Devo'ssa and there was a level of respect and openness that followed thereon. But he also sensed that J'mon was lonely, at least in a vague way that maybe they themself didn't even recognise. So, in some vaguely official capacity Gilmore had taken to pleasing his parents with more frequent trips to his old closet, and then made the journey to Ank'Harel. At least, even though it went against the grain, he could be inconspicuous back home among humans who looked like him. His Marquetian came back, all of a sudden, and no-one in the palace commented on his suddenly more frequent visits to J'mon's side. 

Shaun was fully aware how stupid and young he must seem to Devo'ssa, seeking audience with them and, of course, flirting shamelessly with this centuries old dragon. 

They were right, how brave and foolish and he was. And yet, J'mon Sa Ord humoured him. 

Humoured him, and even flirted back in that calm, distant way of theirs. And finally, on an unremarkable afternoon, taken Shaun's arm where they walked side by side and pulled him to them. 

To be face to face with a dragon was something Gilmore had previously hoped would never, ever, happen again. To be nearly brushing noses while a long fingered hand grasped his arm in a vice like grip, runching up his robes, well- 

This was _quite_ something.  
\---

The cavernous tower room was silent, and lit with afternoon sun from the expansive, ridiculous windows. No-one else was here, of course. The servants stayed below and J'mon was perfectly able of defending themselves if an audience went poorly. Did metallic dragons ever eat people? Was that-?

-really not best not entertained right now.

Just inches apart, Shaun tentatively laid a hand on J'mon's shoulder. The robes they wore felt real, the smoothest and softest of silks with the scratch of gold embroidery thread. Through them they felt warm; he could feel a collar bone, see the pulse of their throat as they swallowed, even if Shaun couldn't quite meet those molten eyes. 

"Shaun." There was a smile in J'mon's voice, even as Shaun stared fixedly at the his own ringed hand resting on the creature's shoulder. 

"So bold for so long, and then-?"

Shaun brought his eyes up to meet J'mon's. It burned, a little, like looking at a flame in the dark and left bright spots dancing in his vision. He raised his other hand as thought to cup J'mon's ethereal face, but couldn't quite bring himself to complete the movement and instead let his hand hover in the air. 

J'mon blinked and smiled, bright spots dancing, and leant their cheek into Gilmore's open hand. 

_A dragon, an ancient, albeit metallic, dragon._

Gilmore took a fortifying breath, and then leant up and pressed his lips to J'mon Sa Ord's. 

The sensation was surprisingly human. Soft lips made of flesh like anyone else's, the huff of breath as they laughed at his brashness, warm skin and a bony hand curling into Gilmore's hair as they kissed him back. Maybe they tasted a little metallic, a little too warm, but those small details weren't distracting. 

No more so than the knowledge that Gilmore was kissing a dragon. 

J'mon pulled their head back, slowly, blinking and smiling down to Shaun. Their perfect, sculpted face seemed calm as ever, even as a cascade of dark hair had slid forwards and hung like a curtain, brushing Gilmore's cheek as he blinked and gripped J'mon's shoulder and smooth warm jaw. 

They were so close J'mon spoke in barely more than a whisper. 

"Bold rune-child, I am very, very old and you are very, very human."

"Then why not indulge me, if I'm not long for this mortal coil?"

Another huff of amusement, followed by a sigh, "I do not know why, but maybe I shall. I indulge myself as well."

The ruler of Ank'Harel leaned forwards and kissed Shaun Gilmore. 

This time the kiss was accompanied by a gust of magic. Gilmore felt it up his spine and the floor tilted away from them both and they fell without moving, and the light changed and cooled as they skipped through space. 

"Just a precaution- a little pocket dimension. If you wish you leave at any point just wish yourself out and you shall be." 

The perspective shift was still a little dizzying but Shaun was sure he hadn't been lying on the floor moments before. It wasn't cool, or warm, and the lack texture and resistance made it very disorientating when he pushed his hand down to steady himself. The light around them was bright and clean and everything was white.

The twirl of magic that had deposited them here had passed. Gilmore could sense the edges of this room like a raised texture in the weave of the world, could see easily how to slip back to the throne room and away if he so wished -but he did not. 

J'mon, impossibly long and thin and strange hovered over him. Their hair was pouring down soft and light as a shadow on a summer's day, the whisper of it brushing Gilmore's arms softly. 

This was ridiculous, this was fantastic- 

Gilmore reached up with both arms to catch J'mon about the shoulders to pull them into another kiss. 

Shaun didn't even mind that this was surely just amusement to J'mon. They must have seen a dozen generations of humans come and go in their city. Humans passing and moving on, living and dying and being born to live again. What a lonely life when you live so much longer than those around you. Who'd have thought to pity a great dragon? 

J'mon's magic was pulling at Gilmore's robes as they kissed, not hands, which he was sure were both in his hair, but warm solid-soft-air sliding the jacket off his shoulders, loosening his sash at his waist. 

It was like being pushed to the floor by something encompassing, smothering, warm and everywhere at once. When Shaun tried to open his eyes and take a breath, J'mon was only faintly visible through the white hot light that pulsed from their eyes. Their face was hazy, changing, and it was far easier to just squeeze his eyelids shut against it all and let the sensations take him. 

Gilmore's hands wound into the softest hair, like spun silk, then warm skin, then hard ridged scale, cloth again, he wasn't sure in the end what he held -an arm? a shoulder?- except that it pulsed with a benign magic. 

Something kissed him that had soft lips, and then there was hot breath on his throat and the scrape of unnaturally sharp teeth and a tongue that couldn't be that of a human- rasping like a cats-

This had to be the most confusing make-out session, but then- 

Shaun tried to look again, but could barely open his eyes against the brightness. Something glinted off a brass scale, there was green and blue and black hair but all lost into what seemed to be the sun above him, featherweight above his body but all around and infinite in size. 

A distinctly human hand hummed down his chest and made his skin prickle into gooseflesh. Somehow most of his clothing seemed absent already. The touch was like sparks, little flairs of the arcane or of electricity that buzzed and tingled and he could hear J'mon's voice, a little discordant. It was both their human voice and the deeper rumble of Devo'ssa.

"Child, are you well?"

"I-I'm, I -well, I'm glorious." 

A rumble of a chuckle like a thundercloud somewhere close by. He felt J'mon's lip press to his own again and hands cup his face. Far too hot for skin, but there was no pain. 

Shaun could feel his body responding to the touch, as strange and confusing as it was. He couldn't open his eyes, and now J'mon's lips and face pressed into his own again, impossibly bright. Everything was rooted back to the electric touches to his skin. His analytical mind wanted to see J'mon, to know what magic they manipulated to play with Gilmore's body in this way, and what they even looked like right now as they were enclosed in this, their private space. 

The other, hedonistic tendency Shaun harboured just wanted to fold into the experience and have the most glorious sex he'd ever have had or ever could hope to have again. 

...The latter was winning out. 

Oh, this was going to be very hard to live up to in the future. 

Usually Shaun was more assertive and handsy, but there was very little tangible to hold onto with J'mon, who was both there and not. There was a warm body pressed all along his, Shaun thought, but one that weighed nothing and he couldn't feel anything to say whether that was a knee that pushed into his thigh, or the press of ribs against his own: it was more a vague sensation and presence.

When his hand traced down where thought here was a back, it was too smooth, and then his fingers slipped off the edge of a hard scale instead of a shoulder blade- and just as he worried he was to be crushed by the brass dragon's full form there was scalp and soft hair and an ear again, a laughing face, pressing a hot kiss onto Gilmore's palm. 

"Worry not-" There was a whisper in J'mon's voice close by his ear. 

Then- 

Something intangibly smooth and hot sank about Gilmore's cock and he gasped up into the brightness above him. 

It was electricity, it was hot, hot water, but blissfully so and when whatever it was moved with his body he let out high keening noises in the back of mouth. 

There were no hands now. Something held his face comfortingly but Shaun couldn't place what. He could taste metal like he'd bitten his tongue and smell the magic in the air. 

His breaths were sharp and timed with the sensations tugging at him. Blindly, he reached his hands out to hold something, anything. 

His grasp met impossibly warm skin again.

Gilmore clung onto this fragile, powerful intangible body as the shudder of magic pulsed through his belly and into his heart with the pull at his cock. The most base act and the most elevated experience he had ever had. 

He was kicking up his hips without wanting to, twitching in the grasp. There was electricity running down his spine and the brightness behind his eyes was pulsing with each beat as he cried out-

"Devo'ssa!" 

A warm sigh, all around him. But barely heard as Gilmore clutched at a handful of silk-soft hair and the pull at his cock grew firmer, hotter and his eyes rolled back. 

An infinitely long moment.

Then Gilmore screamed as electricity and fire shook his body and pure pleasure took him. 

\---

When his breathing had returned to something a little steadier, and he'd swallowed a few times to soothe his raw throat, Shaun opened his eyes slowly.

The blinding light was fading back into a duller glow and as his eyes adjusted he blinked about the strange featureless space they occupied. 

There was nothing above him but whiteness. No strange sensations but the cooling of his skin which was too warm, like he'd lain in the sun too long and fallen asleep. 

J'mon was lying to his right on their side. They leant on an elbow, propping up their chin on one hand. Long black hair draped across their naked form obscuring anything of interest, and their free hand tapped lazily on the floor. 

They shone out, still, in the blank canvas of the room, a dark bright spot with the rust-brown of their skin and jet black of their hair. It was stunning against the unnatural white backdrop of their pocket dimension. 

J'mon's eyes were still a little too bright, but Gilmore could at least look into the general area of their face. 

They were smiling, softly, contentedly. 

"Are you always that... overwhelming?"

J'mon's face spread across with a wide, lazy smile. 

"My apologies. It's been some time, and, I may have been a little over enthusiastic."

Gilmore rolled his head back against the floor to stare up into the white space above them both, "Oh, I'm certainly not complaining. I mean, you've certainly, shall we say, raised the bar but- sweet goddess- no- I'm not complaining." 

A chuckle, and gentle spidery fingers turned his cheek about to look back at J'mon. 

"Thank you Shaun Gilmore." 

"I- uh-" A quick reply wouldn't form itself within the blissful haze of his mind. "I'm- also- thank you?" 

How verbose. 

How do you say 'can I return the favour' to an ancient dragon? Shaun swallowed and blinked, trying to give his mind a moment to catch up with the rest of him. 

J'mon inclined their head gently and reached out to brush Gilmore's hair off his face. "It's quite alright. Although, now I must leave you." 

They stood up, with a sudden fall of blue green robes about their form and proffered a hand to Shaun, prone on the floor. 

He sat up and reached out without question. 

As soon as their fingers touched the room swirled about them.

The afternoon sunlight fell back into the room like a curtain had been flung open. The sensations of the hot dry air of Ank'Harel and the smell of the incense from the foyer returned. There was solid tile underfoot and the whisper of wind outside the windows.

They were standing, both fully dressed as they had been, in the palace tower chamber. 

J'mon let go Gilmore's hand and bowed.

"I apologise for the abruptness. Maybe another time we may actually speak about some thing I have long meant to raise with you as well, and I think that could be a very interesting conversation."

"I, why yes, of course." Shaun paused for a second, grounding himself in the time and place and the sudden movement of being thrown upright, standing like nothing had just transpired. 

Catching himself, he bowed low, "Be pleased."

Shaun Gilmore though he could feel J'mon Sa Ord's smile. Although, when he looked up, their lithe figure had vanished.


End file.
